Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives - Softcover

Palfrey, John; Gasser, Urs

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0465018564 ISBN 13: 9780465018567

Publisher: Basic Books, 2010

Synopsis

The first generation of Digital Natives” children who were born into and raised in the digital world are coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Our economy, our politics, our culture, and even the shape of our family life will be forever transformed. But who are these Digital Natives? And what is the world they're creating going to look like?

In Born Digital, leading Internet and technology experts John Palfrey and Urs Gasser offer a sociological portrait of these young people, who can seem, even to those merely a generation older, both extraordinarily sophisticated and strangely narrow. Exploring a broad range of issues, from the highly philosophical to the purely practical, Born Digital will be essential reading for parents, teachers, and the myriad of confused adults who want to understand the digital present and shape the digital future.

About this title

About the Author

John Palfrey is Professor of Law and a Vice Dean at Harvard Law School. A faculty director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, he is a regular commentator on network news programs, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox News, NPR, and BBC. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Urs Gasser is the Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. He has edited six books and has written over sixty articles in books, law reviews, and professional journals. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

From Publishers Weekly

In this critical but optimistic overview, academics Palfrey (of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society) and Gasser (of the Swiss U. of St. Gallen) share their concern about the legal and social ramifications of the Internet with regard to the generation of "Digital Natives" born after 1980. In a wide-ranging examination of "the future opportunities and challenges associated with the Internet as a social space," Palfrey and Gasser find most young people fail to recognize the vulnerability of their information-that internet posts are never really private-and suggest tactful parental and school oversight. They find a more serious problem in the failure of the U.S. to regulate data mining by search engines, which even now have the potential to create cradle-to-grave dossiers on individuals, including online medical and financial records; they compare the U.S. system with Europe's policies, which have put in place much more effective data protection. Parents and educators will benefit from Palfrey and Gasser's discussion of issues like safety, content control and illegal file sharing; with proper attention from them, the authors see a bright future for the Internet that should foster "global citizens" with a "spirit of innovation, entrepreneurship and caring for society at large."
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0465018564
• ISBN 13: 9780465018567
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 400